Image of destruction in Mandalay, Myanmar, from Al Jazeera.


As if the ongoing civil war wasn’t enough, Myanmar has now been struck by a very powerful earthquake, resulting in 2000 deaths and thousands more injured as of the time of writing. Estimates are that the death toll could reach 10,000. Infrastructure like roads and bridges are damaged, and the hospitals are overwhelmed. The earthquake struck during Eid prayers, resulting in even higher casualties as several mosques collapsed. 20 million people already required humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, and now the situation there will be even worse. International rescue teams have rushed into the country, and aid is being raised, though with USAID experiencing the… changes that it is, the United States will be of even more limited help than usual. So far, China has sent $14 million, while USAID has supplied $2 million. In Thailand, the death toll seems considerably lower, though there has still been significant damage; a skyscraper under construction collapsed in Bangkok.

Myanmar is located very close to the boundary between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. In particular, the country is divided in two by the north-south oriented Sagaing fault. This fault is typically strike-slip; that is, each side of the fault moves horizontally past each other. The earthquake’s depth was 10 kilometers, which is pretty shallow, and its proximity to the surface amplified the felt force of the earthquake. Additionally, the soft soil in this region tends to further amplify seismic waves through a process called liquefaction. Combine all this with the lackluster building codes due to many years of impoverishment and civil wars, and this explains why the death toll, and the expense to the country in general to repair damage, will probably be extremely high.


Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.


  • LargePenis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    I met my wife’s zoomer cousins today for Eid and they’re all watching YouTube streams of iShowSpeed touring China. I looked up some of the highlights of those streams and I genuinely believe that shit is more effective for the improvement of China’s image amongst zoomer youth than a thousand articles by academic leftists titled “China’s prosperity boom” or whatever. Zoomers are watching and being impressed by how clean the cities are, the fact that the stream doesn’t lag in a high speed train in a tunnel, by how well-mannered Chinese youth are, and even trivial stuff like knowing about the Great Wall of China for the first time. 🇹🇼🇺🇦-bio creatures are seething in twitter replies about the evil SeeSeePee paying Speed to do these streams, while he’s chilling in the Chinese mountains learning Shaolin kung fu by a nice Chinese dude named Master Liang. The world has truly changed, no amount of leaflets and protests has even a fraction of the effect of one stream of this Speed guy eating spicy noodles while doing backflips in the Forbidden City next to Mao’s mausoleum.

      • LargePenis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        iShowSpeed is absolutely massive, I had no idea he was so big honestly. Over 30m Instagram followers, constant 150k+ viewers on his live streams, 37.5m YouTube subscribers, hell they even made him the fucking mayor of Lima in Peru for an hour when he was there. Outside of like Messi, Ronaldo and a handful other top athletes, he has to be one of the most popular people in the world right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least half of zoomers all over the world know who he is. I was looking at his Instagram today and I noticed that my zoomer cousins in Lebanon follow him and they don’t even know any English lol. I don’t think that the Chinese can get a bigger influencer than him right now, but who knows maybe communist tech can bring back Jesus Christ himself in 10 years and make him ride high speed rail and heal Chinese grandmas in Chongqing.

      • coolusername [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        I’m Taiwanese-American and live in Taiwan. The CPC subsidizes tours of China at least for Taiwanese people. They kind of make it sort of like an academic exchange vibe.

      • LargePenis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        Well yeah, this shit is so goofy and happens every single year. So basically Muslims throughout history have been following the moon for our lunar calendar by doing moon sighting every month. They see a fresh crescent = new month starts tomorrow, they don’t see a fresh crescent = month starts one extra day later. Well humans figured out a few hundred years ago that one can do mathematical calculations to estimate the state of that crescent. Islamic scholars then disagreed if mathematical calculations and even sightings using telescopes count as valid evidence for the new crescent. Saudis a few years ago decided to fully switch to calculations, but to not upset the more conservative parts of the Islamic world, they just make up random eyesight evidence every single time. It was scientifically impossible for any person in the Arabian peninsula to actually see the crescent on Saturday, but that didn’t stop the Saudis and a few other countries from announcing the end of Ramadan and the start of Eid on Sunday anyway. Most Islamic countries including Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Iran didn’t celebrate Eid on Sunday and waited until today. My wife’s family celebrated today too, so our real gathering had to wait until today lol.

        • TheDeed [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          Ahaha we also have the same problem in Judaism, the custom in earlier times, the new moon would be spotted in the Jerusalem so a dude would have to go send a message to the other cities and the them the new moon was up. So outside Jerusalem these days, some people observe holidays for two days to be on the safe side. In the more liberal traditions outside Jerusalem we just celebrate one day, which the more hardline denominations do not agree

    • MarmiteLover123 [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      I suspect maybe Waltz and definitely his assistant Alex Wong, is gone then. Loomer has been compiling evidence and opposition research against them for a while on her public twitter.

      It’s not about Iran, it’s about getting rid of “Biden holdovers” and vetting. An ideological purge. The Hunter Biden laptop cover-up is playing a big role here. Plenty of Trump loyalists want war with Iran, Hegseth being the main one.

        • MarmiteLover123 [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          Loomer seems to be serious about her oppo research, but it’s not about removing neocons, it’s about ensuring absolute loyalty to Trump. She basically wants to go full scorched earth against anyone with connections to Biden, Obama, and/or other countries.

      • mkultrawide [any]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        Maybe at a later time, but apparently Trump basically plans to keep Waltz to own the libs and not admit anything was wrong with whiskeyleaks

    • companero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      My gut tells me this is more about Russia/Ukraine than Iran. As far as I can tell, pretty much everyone in power wants to bomb Iran.

  • Woly [any]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    Most destructive administration in modern history and the Democrats just beat the record for talking.

    Doing it without even having any actual bill to stop is like going to the basketball court on a day off and dancing around in front of the net when the other team isn’t there, and then claiming you played great defence. And then losing to the other team when you actually play.

  • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    All the recent attention on El Salvador is a good time to point out that Bukele is Palestinian and likes to position himself as “one of the good ones” referring to Hamas as “animals” and making a point to say that he’s a Christian Palestinian.

  • sexywheat [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    10 months ago

    Japan: Nikkei 225, Topix Futures suspended due to circuit breaker

    The suspension of Japanese stock futures trading due to a circuit breaker indicates that the market has experienced a significant price movement—either a sharp decline or a rapid rise—triggering an automatic mechanism designed to halt trading temporarily.

    This is a regulatory measure used by stock exchanges, such as the Japan Exchange Group (JPX), which oversees the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Osaka Exchange, and Tokyo Commodity Exchange, to prevent panic selling or buying and stabilize the market during extreme volatility.

  • miz [any, any]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    Gaza civil defense confirms rescue workers ‘bound, executed, buried in mass grave’ | The Cradle

    ‘They were killed by “Israeli” forces while trying to save lives,’ the UN humanitarian chief stated

    The General Directorate of Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip confirmed on 2 April that “Israeli” forces executed Palestinian first responders and buried them in a mass grave in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, southern Gaza, on 23 March.

    The General Directorate reported that the bodies of eight from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), six from the Palestinian Civil Defence (PCD), and one UNRWA worker were found eight days later, buried approximately 200 meters from where their vehicles, an ambulance, and a fire engine had also been destroyed.

    Some of the bodies were found with their hands bound and with bullet holes visible in their chests and heads. One of the victims had been decapitated, while others had been disfigured and dismembered.

    what in the actual fuck

  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    Argentina’s Senate Rejects Supreme Court Nominees: A Major Blow to Javier Milei’s Government - Telesur English

    Article

    Argentina’s Senate rejects Javier Milei’s Supreme Court nominees in a historic 51-20 vote, escalating tensions between the president and Congress. The government calls it a ‘political attack.’

    Argentina’s Senate dealt a significant setback to President Javier Milei’s administration on Thursday by rejecting the nominations of Manuel José García Mansilla and Ariel Lijo to the Supreme Court. In a decisive vote, García Mansilla’s nomination was dismissed with 20 votes in favor and 51 against, while Lijo’s received 27 votes in favor, 43 against, and one abstention.

    Failed Negotiations and Political Tensions

    According to Tiempo Argentino, last-minute negotiations involved multiple opposition factions, including senators and governors who appeared unlikely allies. However, these efforts collapsed amid the political tensions that have defined Milei’s presidency. The rejection came while Milei was attending the World Economic Forum in Davos.

    Despite the government’s attempts to delay the session and avoid a legislative defeat, the two candidates—appointed by presidential decree—failed to secure Senate approval.

    Government’s Strong Reaction

    In a sharply worded statement, Milei’s administration condemned the Senate’s decision, calling it “historically unprecedented.”

    “>For the first time in history, the Senate has rejected a president’s nominees purely for political reasons, not over qualifications,” the government declared. It accused the upper house of being a “refuge for the political elite” and acting against the interests of the Argentine people.

    Broader Implications

    The rejection marks a turning point in the strained relationship between Milei’s executive branch and the Senate, highlighting his struggles to advance his agenda amid rising polarization. The move also raises questions about the future of Argentina’s judiciary, now left with two vacant Supreme Court seats. and Milei’s ability to govern effectively without legislative support.

    With this defeat, Milei faces mounting political challenges and must recalibrate his strategy to either propose new nominees who can gain Senate approval and double down on executive actions, risking further clashes with Congress.

  • miz [any, any]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    Red Crescent releases video showing Israeli [sic] murder of first responders | The Cradle

    Mobile phone video shows Israeli [sic] troops killed 15 Palestinian rescuers despite flashing emergency lights and sirens marking their vehicles as ambulances

    as @companero pointed out elsewhere

    Israel [sic] previously claimed that the ambulances “approached suspiciously” with their headlights and emergency lights off. Video proves otherwise.